June 30, 2008

Association of Canadian Engineering Companies

ACEC plans video to promote consulting engineering careers

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

The Association of Canadian Engineering Companies (ACEC) will spend more than $300,000 to produce a video illustrating that consulting engineering is “an exciting and rewarding” career choice and to implement a communications plan to deliver that message to students.

Chair-elect Chris Newcomb, president of McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd. of Vancouver said the industry has to do a better job of making engineering students aware of career opportunities if firms are to survive and prosper and continue to meet important obligations to clients and society.

“We have to preserve and renew our intellectual capital,” he said in a speech to the 2008 Ontario Consulting Engineering Awards banquet.

“Engineering students have a wide range of career choices. Only a small portion of them enter the consulting industry. That’s largely because our industry is almost invisible to them.”

In conjunction with the initiative, ACEC is seeking eight or ten engineering projects to be featured in the video. Projects will be chosen within the next couple of weeks, Newcomb said.

The association also is looking for $200,000 in funding from individual firms.

Firms are being asked to provide $10,000 each to help sponsor the video.

“I think you should want to do this for two reasons, for the general good of our industry and for the good of your firms because for the next several years, your company’s name is going to appear on the video’s credits,” Newcomb said.

The video, which was inspired by one produced by a consulting engineering association in Australia, will be distributed to ACEC member firms and universities, viewed on YouTube and presented at conferences.

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